I know I keep bothering you guys with this but another amazing #artist friend recently joined the #fediverse and she absolutely deserves a big #welcome, so can you help me with that? 🙏💗

➡️✨@leboisdesfees ✨⬅️

Iran: Journalists Elaheh Mohammadi, Niloofar Hamedi and Rouhollah Nakhaei granted pardons https://www.byteseu.com/741331/ #AnthonyBellanger #Conflicts #ElahehMohammadi #IFJ #Iran #Iranian #jail #JinaMahsaAmini #journalism #Journalist #NiloofarHamedi #pardon #PressFreedom #release #released #RouhollahNakhaei #solidarity #Union #welcome #win

#Welcome to the Fediverse! Such fun to see #medieval #costume pictures on Pixelfed. Looking forward to more!
@medievodons @histodons

Whether you're religious or anti-religious, if you want to convince me that you have something good to offer me and others, if you approach me with violence, aggression, hostility, and supercilious arrogance, I will tune you out.

Because the world is full of those things and those of us repulsed by them seek alternatives to them from anyone promising us good solutions, not echoes of them.

#religion #morality #community #welcome #violence #cruelty
/8

I agree with Jessica Grose. Religious bodies can exercise great cruelty and do horrific injustice. I know this personally as someone who has worked for church institutions and experienced deplorable discrimination in them.

Religious people have much to learn from non-religious and anti-religious people including atheists. One can be a profoundly moral person and have no religious faith at all.

#religion #morality #community #welcome #violence #cruelty
/6

"Religious institutions are certainly not the only potential avenue for meaning, purpose and value in society. But we can’t underestimate the power of their reach, even in an increasingly secular world. When they have epic moral failures, it affects all of us, because it makes everyone more suspicious of potentially welcoming communities."

#religion #morality #community #welcome #violence #cruelty
/5

"As a secular, mildly observant Jew, I don’t feel strongly about whether other Americans attend religious services or believe in God. But I do care about the pervasive — and honestly, warranted — cynicism that young people have about religious institutions, because I think it is contributing to a more disconnected, careless and cruel society."

#religion #morality #community #welcome #violence #cruelty
/4

Jessica Grose notes the compelling reasons many younger people are turning their backs on organized religion — she points, in particular, to the horror show of sexual abuse of minors and its coverup in the Catholic church.

But she laments the effects of this rejection of religious institutions for the following reasons:

#religion #morality #community #welcome #violence #cruelty
/3

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/22/opinion/religious-institutions-church.html

Herzlich Willkommen! Schön dass die Mastodon-Instanz des Bundes weiter Zulauf erhält! #HelloWorld #Welcome #eXit